The 119 is almost identically sized to its predecessor (the size of the enclosure harks back to the original Linn Kan, which itself was Linn’s more tuneful, ‘can do’ response to the classic BBC LS3/5a). The Majik 109 is about a centimetre deeper, but are otherwise within a milimetre of one another. Both are bass reflex designs, but where the 109 used its front ‘scoop’ for its port, the 119’s rear-firing port needs a little more ‘breathing room’. However, foam bungs are provided for use against a rear wall. 

As in the 360, the supertweeter is consigned to history and the 19.55mm Sonomex dome tweeter sitting behind a tweeter guard styled like the Linn logo. This is joined by a 160mm Nextel-coated paper mid/bass unit. This makes a loudspeaker that’s weighing in at a shade over seven kilogrammes; almost two kilos heavier than its predecessor. The price has increased too.

Active or passive

The 119 can be provided in active or passive form straight from Linn’s Glasgow factory, or passive loudspeakers can be prepped for active use at a Linn dealer. In theory, the move from one to the other could be performed in situ, and potentially even by a customer if they were very distant from their dealer. It’s not a complex upgrade (mostly involving the careful removal of a crossover), but Linn’s famed attention to detail puts the upgrade in the hands of professionals.  

The more complex part is the change to the amplifiers. Traditionally, this called upon a series of model-specific ‘Aktiv’ cards to be installed in a Linn amplifier. However, today all it takes is the regular all-purpose power amplifier cartridges, which are then programmed using software to teach them which drive unit on which model of speaker their output is tailored. You need cartridges for each driver, of course. 

Linn has stopped using terms like ‘Majik’, ‘Selekt’ or ‘Klimax’ for its loudspeakers, reserving those names for LP12 turntable variants and electronics. At present, an Exakt active upgrade is beyond Majik-level amplification, but the Selekt DSM is such a flexible platform, it lends itself to the process.

A quick Selekt DSM recap is in order. With two different finishes, the choice of three DAC options and four levels of amplification – from ‘none: streamer only’ to ‘multi-channel home cinema amplifier’, the Linn Selekt DSM is the company’s ‘Flexible Friend’ (citing a popular credit card TV advert from the late 1970s that ran until 30 years ago doesn’t date me, oh no).

It’s hammer time!

While I’m no stranger to an Allen bolt, I think casually mentioning that most things can be ‘fixed’ with hammers is the reason Linn sent me two pairs of 119s and two Linn Selekt DSM integrated amplifiers/streamers. One set was purely passive; the Selekt DSM had standard stereo amplifier cartridge and the 119s had passive crossovers. The other moved the crossover inside the Selekt DSM, doubling the number of amplifier modules inside the amp in the process, with the 119 configured for active drive.

The Selekt DSM is a known quantity to hi-fi+, having tested the streamer only version in Issue 164. The amplifier modules are 50W/8Ω, 100W/4Ω Class D designs. However, while these amp modules were not tested in the previous review, Linn’s overall musical presentation remains the same; these are extremely clean, tight and muscular amplifiers with a characteristic ‘dry; like a martini, not a desert’ sound. There’s no artificial richness or warmth here, but the sound isn’t cold or dead. It’s just that Linn places the demands on the recording rather than the electronics to create any sense of lushness or legato-like flow to the music.

In search of space

The Linn toolkit includes Space Optimisation, which allows the listener or installer to enter room parameters and characteristics and apply correcting DSP to the output of the amplifier. This differs from the room correction provided by companies such as Lyngdorf/Steinway-Lyngdorf or Trinnov because it doesn’t use microphone measurement to provide the room compensation. It instead relies on inserting room size, construction, the presence of windows and doors, furnishing and the position of the loudspeakers to build a sophisticated ‘4D’ model of the room. 

In an ideal setting, the listener sits at the apex of an isosceles triangle in a slightly non-parallel rectangular room, in the real world sometimes that’s impossible. Maybe room or domestic demands mean that triangle becomes more scalene or even obtuse. Maybe one loudspeaker needs to be closer to the rear wall than the other. Or perhaps you sit in the corner of a large L-shaped room. By entering those parameters into the Manage Systems webpage, you can accommodate almost any limitations. Moreover, even in ideal conditions, Space Optimisation works well. Switching it in and out clearly removes some of the overt bass booms and cuts in most rooms and simply makes the room less of an impactful element in the overall sound. 

Space Optimisation’s DSP impact on music is mild, too; it trades a little bit of temporal precision for a better in-room performance and unless most of your listening is the glitchy rhythms of Autechre or Squarepusher, it’s a trade-off you’ll happily accept. And in the 119, it also means you don’t need to use bungs in close-to-wall settings. 

There are also some Custom Filters buried deep in the Advanced menus of the configuration settings. While these can tailor the tonal balance of a pair of loudspeakers, they are buried for a reason; they aren’t tone controls. Think of them as slightly more useful than that weird package-carrying hook thing on a Swiss Army Knife. 

The 119 is the perfect partner for the Selekt DSM. The loudspeaker is extremely detailed and open sounding, with excellent bass. Even without Space Optimisation in place, they more than deliver the goods. They also deliver a surprisingly big and articulate sound, both in terms of soundstage and just sheer scale. Unless you are listening in an aircraft hanger of a room, if you close your eyes and listen, at no point will you get a sense of a stand-mount loudspeaker in the room. In fact, you’d lay bets you were listening to a far larger three-way design.

Energetic

It’s a clever combination of an energetic yet not over-enthusiastic sound. It gets under the skin of the music, whatever music you’re playing. However, ‘fun’ loudspeakers are often ‘inaccurate’ loudspeakers and that’s not the case here. This is an extremely accurate, transparent and faithful representation of the music, with exceptionally deep bass. While clearly made for Linn’s own amplification, I used it to great effect with amps like the Primare I35 Prisma, too. That deep bass, articulate and big sound shone through regardless.

Musically, it took everything I threw at it with aplomb, whether the amplifiers had the Linn logo or not. The precision shone through when playing string quartets, such as ‘Entr’acte’ by Caroline Shaw and the Attica Quartet [Orange, Nonesuch]. Sometimes with two-way stand-mounts, this music can get a little lost, sounding cerebral and nothing more. The 119 brings out the emotion and ‘juiciness’ of the music (juice factor has nothing to do with the orange on the cover, honestly). Play something swampy and ZZ Top shaped, or complex hip-hop like ‘Homerton’ by Loyle Carner [Hugo, AMF] and you are met with the same detail and precision, but the vibe always remains powerfully present.

While we never reviewed the Majik 109, I always had a soft spot for its fast and fun performance. But the 119 makes its predecessor sound flat and drab. The combination of detail and energy puts the 119 at the top of the ‘bookshelf’ or ‘mini-monitor’ tree. More important, this means the 119 passes the golden rule of active loudspeaker design; don’t try make a mediocre design better with an active crossover and amplifiers. The Linn 119 has all the right elements in place in its passive design, so bodes well when suitably ‘beefed’.

Such a little jump

Moving to active with Exakt technology seems like such a little jump, physically. The bi-wire terminals at the rear of the 119s become direct connections to bass and treble, and an extra cartridge slot is filled at the back of the Linn Selekt DSM. In fact, if you use Linn’s own K40 bi-wire cable, unless you take a close look at the terminations at both ends, you could easily pass the upgrade off as a product recall or repair. This gets closer than ever to that illusive ‘invisible upgrade’ that every audiophile in history has tried – and usually failed – to get past their partners. However, once you get the active system in place, the ‘invisible upgrade’ switches to ‘what did you just change?’ in that accusatory ‘that sounds like you spent holiday-grade money on the hi-fi’ tone.

Active 119s call on a series of Exakt filters in the ‘Manage Systems’ part of the user configuration webpage. This shapes the Exakt engine within the Selekt DSM and allows some degree of fine-tuning of the 119’s profile. These don’t change the fundamental characteristics of the loudspeaker but can highlight one of its strengths or go for a more balanced presentation.  

Going Exakt moves Space Optimisation to Space Optimisation+ levels, which takes the timing control down to the more granular level of per-driver control. Put simply, it simultaneously makes Space Optimisation do its job a little better while making those minor temporal effects on the music shrink to close to zero.

Practical application

All of which would be nice in theory, but the practical application in the Linn 119 is stunning. The loudspeaker effectively disappears, acting like a point source in soundstage terms and a direct injection of music into your head in all other aspects. Suddenly, the passive 119 sounds like it was dynamically compromised. It wasn’t, but the degree of snap and focus to the sound coupled with a performance that sounds like most of the loudspeaker got out of the way that Exakt Aktiv brings to the party is hard to miss. 

It’s not simply extra information – although play any Rolling Stones recordings from this century and you can almost hear the crepitus in Keef’s arthritic hands. Nor is it just extra dynamic and volume headroom – although playing Mogwai at a fair lick can loosen fillings at 30 paces. It’s the level of musical communication the Exakt-configured 119s bring that takes a great loudspeaker and transforms it. Music here is a vivid, vivacious and visceral experience. Listen to one of Nick Cave’s more harrowing albums and those emotions run deep. You could turn the most hawkish person you know into an anti-war campaigner if they spent an hour with these speakers and Polly Harvey’s Let England Shake [Island].

Exakt takes the good basic formula of the Linn 119 and shows what that loudspeaker is capable of. And, it turns out, that’s quite a lot! And there’s no going back – I tried switching back to the passive Linn Selekt DSM and 119 and, while it was still an excellent performer, it had lost that magic that active drive delivered. Could I still live with the passive version? Absolutely, but having had a taste of what they can do, the mental gymnastics required to move back to passive are too great. This means be careful of Yoda-ing yourself in the demonstration: “Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.” If you have an active demonstration, be prepared to have active loudspeakers. It’s that simple.

Nit-picking

The downside with active is nit-picking at best. It locks you into a Linn ecosystem and specifically an ecosystem that includes the Linn Selekt DSM integrated amp. Yes, there are active crossovers (I’d be interested to hear this through the Kudos Audio Sigao Drive and other amplifiers, for example), but you lose Space Optimisation+ and other options in the process. In addition, doing so with third party electronics would likely drastically raise the price of the amplification to the point where the exercise is difficult to justify in sheer economic terms. However, sonically speaking, the Linn 119 is more than up to the task. And that’s the point; the Linn 119 is capable of pushing the limits of what you can expect from a two-way stand-mount of this size, to the point where everything else in the system gets really expensive, just to keep up.

I think the 119 could be the gateway into that Linn ecosystem. This is an excellent passive two-way stand-mount loudspeaker – one of the best, in fact. Many will use the 119 on the end of decent electronics from other brands, and for some the temptation of switching over to active is going to continually get under their skin. Sooner or later, they’ll hear how far Exakt raise the bar; even if they don’t make the jump at that point, they’ll probably opt for a Linn Selekt DSM knowing the option is open for the future. Then, it’s just a short hop to Exakt active drive. That’s it; you’re a ‘Linnie’, and you are picking out the finish on your LP12 plinth. Best of all, you’ll do all this with a big smile on your face thanks to the music the 119s make. 

Specs & Pricing

Linn 119
Type: Two-way bass-reflect loudspeaker
Drive Units: 19.55mm soft Sonomex dome, 160mm Nextel-coated paper cone mid-bass
Cabinet volume: 9 litres
Finish: Walnut, Oak, Satin Black, Satin White
Dimensions (WxHxD): 19.1×32.8×24.1cm
Weight: 7.15kg
Price: from £2,500, $3,250, €2,975

Linn Selekt DSM
Type: Configurable network player and amplifier
Standard features: Utopik Power Supply, Wireless Streaming via WiFi, Bluetooth and AirPlay 2, Support for FLAC, Apple Lossless, WAV, DSD (64/128/256), MP3, WMA (except lossless), AIFF, AAC and OGG at up to 24-bit/384kHz resolution, MM/MC Phono Stage, Analogue Input (RCA Pair), Space Optimisation, Exakt Ready
Standard inputs: Ethernet, HDMI ARC, Toslink S/PDIF and coaxial S/PDIF (in/out, configurable), USB Type B, RCA line level, MM phono, MC phono
Standard outputs: HDMI 2.0, Exakt link, RCA subwoofer out, ¼” headphone jack
Amplifier sections: 100W into four ohms (Class D) modules
Available in Classic Hub and Edition Hub versions
Dimensions (WxHxD): 35.5×12.3×35.5cm (Classic Hub), 35.5×11.9×35.5 (Edition Hub)
Weight: 8.05-10.85kg (Classic Hub); 9.5-12.3kg (Edition Hub)
Price: from £5,650, $7,345, €6,725

Five Most Significant Product Introductions

Aequo Audio, based in Holland, has been in business for about a decade but is unfamiliar to many North American audiophiles, me included. This could be about to change. The company is poised to introduce two new loudspeakers, the Adamantis passive 3-way ($37,900) and the Ensium 500-watt bass-assisted 3-way ($44,900) that represent the first commercial implementation of a Nanotech material called Diluvite MMC. This “metal matrix composite” has unique physical properties that Aequo has leveraged to both sonic and aesthetic advantage. Diluvite is an extremely inert material that converts vibration into heat: Rapping your knuckles on the enclosure results in an dull thud (and sore knuckles.) In addition to minimizing cabinet resonances, Diluvite can be readily formed into “complex organic shapes” that aren’t just easy on the eyes but also serve to further control vibration. At High End 2025, with the Ensium driven by Westminster Lab electronics, an unidentified recording of Saint-Säens’ Danse macabre manifested rich orchestral textures, great imaging, and plenty of musical detail.

The 3-way, four-driver Magico S2 ($34,000/pair for Softek finish; $39,100 for gloss finish) has replaced the 2-way S1 at the “bottom” of the brand’s S Series. In physical size and sound, the new model has much more in common with the current S3 than the now-retired S1 but is less visually imposing. (It’s also between $11,450 and $13,400 cheaper than the S3.) Sonically, the S2 is every bit a Magico—fast, well-balanced across the frequency spectrum, with a characteristically lean but never cool aural presentation. Over the course of a 15-minute audition in Munich, it was obvious that the new speaker does well spatially, with vocals imaging way out into the room.

Estelon has added to its A series of more affordable products—the floorstanding Aura (€17,500/pair) became available in 2023—with the Aurelia (€14,900/pair, €17,900/pair with stands), the Aurelia Centre (€7500) and the Aurus subwoofer (€13,500). Other than Aura, these “real world” Estelons don’t have the sensual curves that characterize the bigger models, and their enclosures are made of a thermoformed mineral composite rather than crushed marble material used to cast the Extremes, Forzas, and other much costlier models. But you are definitely not slumming if you decide to own a pair of the standmount Aurelias, not aesthetically and not sonically. As played at the Munich show with MSB electronics, they manifested the detail retrieval, tonal consistency, and ease of presentation associated with their larger brethren. And note, tech bros: Instead of traditional stands (€3000/pair) to put on the floor, for the same price you can get an elegant version to support the Auras on a desk or countertop. That should be one helluva nearfield listening experience, though I doubt you’ll get much work done.

The Lithuanian loudspeaker manufacturer Silent Pound—don’t ask about the name; I haven’t a clue—brought two speaker models to Munich, the floorstanding Challenger II (€28,000) and the Bloom stand-mount (€14,900.) Both are designed with the same fundamental principle in mind: “Silence the Room” is the Silent Pound motto. Two key design features serve to minimize room interference. First, a unique dipole bass transducer reduces the amount of acoustic energy radiating into the listening space by close to 5dB. Second, a patent-pending midrange enclosure promotes a highly dimensional presentation and, to my ears, an exceptional evenness of top-to-bottom frequency response. In a very small room, I requested some very dynamic and bass-heavy material (large-scale symphonic music, big band, etc.)—and, if blindfolded, would have thought I was listening to a bigger speaker in a much larger space, far away from any room boundaries. I texted RH to come and hear the Bloom, and he was similarly impressed. Silent Pound has dealers in 14 countries, though not as yet in North America. Cofounder and CTO Audrius Balciunas told me the company is working to address that deficiency.

Voxativ’s Alberich bass module was designed to accompany their Hagen back-loaded horn mini-monitor. Together, they comprise the Alberich² System, a modular full-range loudspeaker with a frequency response of 20–33,000Hz and a price starting at €17,900. (In case you’re not a German opera buff, Alberich and Hagan are the father/son villains in Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle.) The Alberich² is an active design, with a 500-watt Class D amplifier on board, and there is, as well, the capacity for a user to adjust several key parameters—level, crossover frequency, and phase—to optimize performance in a specific listening environment.

Auspicious Debuts

When audiophiles think of the ELAC brand, they may think of the Andrew Jones era and the many lower priced models that are currently sold by Music Direct, Crutchfield, and B&H. These are, for sure, products with a high performance-to-price ratio. Many are unaware that ELAC is a German company with a history dating back close to a century, and their catalog includes plenty of pricy, no-compromise gear. The latest example is the Concentro M807 (€22,000/pair) that was proudly introduced at High End 2025. It’s an elegantly contoured 4-way bass-reflex design, weighing in at 137 pounds per side. The high-midrange element is comprised of six small drivers, arranged concentrically around ELAC’s venerable JET 6c AMT tweeter. 4.5” low-midrange drivers are positioned above and below that grouping, and there are two downward-firing 10” woofers. A selector on the rear panel allows the user to choose one of five modes that alter the mix of direct and diffuse sound to best suit the room’s acoustic character.

Manger Audio’s p2 (€15,600 per pair) isn’t a new speaker but sports a redesigned version of the Manger driver, the “bending wave” transducer invented by the brand’s founder, Joseph W. Manger (1929–2016.) His daughter, Daniela, an engineer who has run the company for decades, explained that the latest interation utilized in all Manger models has a stronger motor system, revised damping parameters, and a redesigned chassis—all resulting in improved linearity, less distortion, and superior dynamics. The Manger driver operates from 340 to 4500Hz and is mated in the p2 with a traditional 8” woofer in a sealed enclosure. Manger had plenty of quality vinyl on hand with which to demo the speaker; the familiar Reference Recordings Symphonic Dances (Oue/Minnesota) sounded terrific.

The Piega Premium 801 ($10,000 per pair) is the first product from the Swiss manufacturer to feature a horn-loaded ribbon tweeter, a good-sized one that operates down to 2500Hz, positioned above five identical-appearing cones, one of which is a midrange transducer, two are woofers, and two are passive radiators. Bass was certainly authoritative. This is an active loudspeaker design with functions that can be controlled with the supplied remote.

A new Dutch company, Sphinx Audio-Engineering is on the verge of releasing two loudspeaker models, the Element 3and the Element 5. Both invoke ancient Egypt with an exquisite, sculpted appearance, the enclosures fabricated from a “stone-like material” not unlike the Corian^® utilized for kitchen countertops. The price of the smaller Element 3 is expected to be $38,000–$40,000 per pair. Sphinx isn’t actually a new brand, having been first established in the 1980s but now “reimagined” thanks to the resources of Siltech and Crystal Cable. The enclosure is ported to the front, featuring a proprietary system to optimize bass performance known as “Zero Gravity” that targets compression artifacts to reduce distortion. Bass output is adjustable with rear-panel switches; LF output is rated down to 23Hz.

My friend and colleague Alan Taffel had positive things to say about the PMC Prophecy7 he heard at AXPONA this year, and I was equally impressed with the British manufacturer’s Prophecy9 ($12,999/pair.) Extended bass is produced by a pair of custom-built high excursion 5” woofers implemented in a transmission-line design, combined with a patented airflow technology (“LaminairX”) that greatly reduces the audibility of port chuffing. Soft dome tweeter and midrange drivers are housed in a profiled baffle with a unique waveguide. Prophecy speakers are used at the Teldex studios in Berlin, and the company representative proudly played two Haydn selection recorded there—one for chorus and orchestra, the other a keyboard concerto—to great effect.

In the Auer Acoustics room, I was handed a small block of tankwood, a compressed natural wood product that’s used to construct the cabinets of the company’s Versura line of loudspeakers, including the top-of-the-line V4 (€45,000/pair.) The stuff is dense and heavy, and although the speaker doesn’t visually overpower a room—the front baffle is less than 9” wide— each V4 weighs well over 200 pounds. Bass is prodigious but articulate, down to 20Hz, we’re told. Yet the speaker can be light on its feet: Nothing got in the way of appreciating the pyrotechnics of a solo violin playing a Paganini etude.

The Wilson Benesch Horizon ($39,000) had actually debuted in the UK earlier this year, but Munich was its first appearance at an audio show outside of England. The Horizon is the least costly model in Wilson Benesch’s reference line of floorstanders, sharing technologies utilized in the company’s most ambitious products. The room was very noisy but, from what I could hear of L’histoire du soldat, powered by Lumin amplification, the Horizons demonstrated the characteristic dynamic nuance and tonal accuracy of other speakers from this elite manufacturer.

Wolf von Langa (the man) was playing his Wolf von Langa Sensitivity+ standmount speaker ($11,000/pair, plus $1000 for stands), a two-way design that eschews his favored field-coil technology to bring a top-notch product to market at a lower price. The driver complement includes an AMT tweeter, a cone midrange, and two passive radiator woofers. For a small speaker, dynamics were excellent.

Revival Audio, located in the Alsace region of France, had its newest product on hand, the Atalante 7 Évo (€9390/pair.) The speaker definitely has a retro look to it—boxy, with a furiniture-like dark wood finish. It’s another 3-way, this one sporting a 15” woofer with an unusual basalt sandwich construction. The –6dB low-frequency output was 23Hz, and bass performance was subjectively very good: A walking acoustic bass line was even and well-deliniated. A robust stand that gets the 32-inch-tall speaker up another foot in the air is included in the price.

Among the least expensive speakers I came across at High End 2025 were the Triangle Borea BR04 bookshelf model, at $550/pair, with stands an additional $279/pair. It’s a 2-way model that actually can be located on a bookcase, countertop, or workdesk because the port faces forward. The tweeter is a 25mm device that’s crossed over to a 6” mid/bass driver; the frequency response is given as 44Hz to 22kHz. Unusual at this price point is that there are two sets of binding posts per speaker, and biwiring is an option. Vocals had considerable presence, and synth bass had gratifying impact and extension.

Scansonic is a sort of minor league affiliate of Raido Acoustics offering four lines of loudspeakers—L, M, MB, and Q. The MB and Q series products are built in Denmark by the same people who craft Raidhos. The M series products are made in China, a fact that Scansonic seems to obsfuscate in its slick brochure. It shouldn’t matter, as the M models are also built to a high standard…but audiophiles can have biases against Asian-made gear. The M30.2 sits at the top of the M series line, a robust 3-way floorstander priced at €3500/pair. The speaker stands 43” tall and weighs about 55 pounds. The drive units include a neodymnium ribbon tweeter, a 4” mid/woofer with a honeycomb cone, two 6.5” woofers, also with honycomb membranes, and two passive bass radiators with paper diaphragms. With Vivaldi, pop, big band, and large-scale orchestral fare—with anything you threw at them—the M30.2s sounded excellent when played loudly. I would strongly suggest you don’t worry about the China aspect if this is your budget for full-range loudspeakers.

One reason High End 2026 will be held in Vienna is that the Munich Olympic Center simply can’t accommodate everyone who wants to strut their stuff on the world’s biggest stage for perfectionist audio. In recent years, an increasing number of brands excluded from the MOC have set up shop across the street at MotorWorld München, a large automotive-oriented mall with shops, restuarants, hotels, meeting rooms, and, of course, hundreds of rare and valuable cars to purchase or just oggle. Certainly, the oddest Motorworld exhibit space is a decomissioned railway car outside the main building in which I found the small loudspeaker manufacturer Airplain. (That’s right: A company called Airplain in a railway car at MotorWorld—trains, planes, and automobiles.) Their Model 5 (€20,000/pair) had an AMT tweeter positioned in a relatively tall but slender baffle above four 4” Purifi cones; the speaker delivered a satisfying rendition of my go-to orchestral test track, Bernard Haitink’s 2010 performance of the Allegretto from Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15. It was well worth the trek over from the MOC, though it will be nice to, presumably, have everything under one roof next year.

In Other News

I was told that the OePhi Reference 3, made in Denmark and heard in its near-finished form at High End 2025, will sell in North America for around $20,000 per pair. High frequencies are handled by a 1.5cm true ribbon tweeter that’s mounted in a sub-enclosure that protrudes from the main structure of the cabinet. Combined with a midrange driver and a pair of woofers sourced from Purifi, the system functions from 25 to 40,000Hz, providing an easy load for the hARtmonoblock amplifiers that were driving it via OePhi’s own cables. The simple oak finish was beautifully executed. Another prototype that seems promising is The Pylon Audio Amethyst Gamma, an all-out audiophile effort from an established Polish manufacturer. The speaker is striking in appearance—the enclosure is wood applied to a composite material. The drivers were designed in house and the sound was noteworthy for a complete lack of coloration and excellent front-to-back layering. The company representative steadfastly declined to give even a ballpark estimate of the expected price.

Among the most distinctive-looking products in any category were those from Once Custom Sound, a brand established in Turkey (I defy you to name another Turkish loudspeaker manufacturer.) These curvy, whimsically shaped transducers included the Nar, priced at €24,900/pair. Exotic as it appeared, the Nar is fairly conventional in its design, with drivers sourced from ScanSpeak— a 7” Illuminator paper cone woofer and a ¾” ring dome tweeter.

Among the strangest back stories I encountered at High End 2025 was that of the Indiana Line Utah 8 (€1650/pair). The brand came into being in the late 1970s in Salt Lake City and subsequently moved to Indiana. But it wasn’t economically feasible to make loudspeakers at a low price point in the U.S., and the company went under. It was subsequently resuscitated by an Italian firm, Alcor, who kept the name because it was felt that an American association would be good for sales. In 2006, the brand was taken over by another entity—Coral—and Indiana Line has established itself as one of the best known Italian loudspeaker brands (even if the typical owner has no idea where Indiana or Utah can be found on a map.) The Utah 8s may be pretty pedestrian looking but, sonically, they represent good value— a worthy consideration for a home-theater installation or in a fledgling audiophile’s first system.

Qobuz Connect

Well ahead of High End 2025, industry attendees were invited to a 90-minute press conference to be given by Qobuz, promising that a consequential announcement would be forthcoming. Although I secretly hoped that Qobuz might be telling the assembly about plans for streaming full-resolution immersive content—a Dolby TrueHD Atmos option—most in the audience of several hundred industry people were already aware that this would be the official roll-out of Qobuz Connect, a technology that’s been in the beta-testing phase for some time now, and aims to make the streaming experience more user-friendly.

Several representatives from the company recounted Qobuz’s history since its founding in 2007, contrasting its business model and operating practices to those of a certain malignant Goliath—Qobuz will never have a free, ad-supported subscription option, they pay the rights holders of the music they stream more generously, there’s an emphasis on non-compressed content—and reported on the growth of the service’s utilization in various markets. (The word “Spotify” wasn’t uttered for at least the first 20 minutes of the presentation.) Qobuz launched in the United States on Valentine’s Day, 2019, and American subscribers now account for 23% of Qobuz’s audience—more than in France, where the company is based. But there were some issues that could make using the service clunky, especially if a listener used multiple devices in the course of their music consumption.

Qobuz Control centralizes music control for subscribers, controlling playback with the Qobuz app, regardless of where the service is being used. It will be easy to switch between different devices—say, from a portable, headphone-based system to one’s serious indoor rig—without missing a beat, so to speak. The playback queue is synchronized across all of one’s devices, and optimal audio quality is assured. Access to all the editorial content, provided by the human curators that work for Qobuz, will be available, whatever device is being utilized. Around 60 hi-fi brands have already signed on and will be providing owners with the necessary firmware updates. The service is available to Quboz subscribers with the Studio or Sublime plans at no additional cost over what they’re currently paying.

Immersive Audio at High End 2025
The (Very) Good, the (Not too) Bad, and the Ugly

To this point, immersive audio demonstrations at audio shows have been a big disappointment, not making a good case at all to audiophiles with little or no experience with spatial music of any kind. There were four such demos at the Munich show, and I heard three of them; scheduling problems precluded my attending the one offered by Lyngdorf Audio, which I certainly regret.

Over at MotorWorld, Cabasse was playing a new product called The Pearl Theater. The system is “scalable,” in the sense that the user decides how many channels he or she wants. For $9990, one gets a 5.1.2 speaker complement—seven identical 7.5cm spherical satellites and a subwoofer, plus a versatile AV receiver and two peripheral 50-watt amplifiers that communicate wirelessly with the main unit to power the surround and height channels. The presentation began with Mad Max on screen, never a good sign, the high-ceilinged, rather reflective space progressively filling with automotive mayhem and explosions. On the video monitor, I noted a chamber music demo option, which I requested, to be rewarded with the most incoherent performance of (I think) Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet I’ve ever heard—too loud, with absolutely no sense of an ensemble playing together in a real space. I fled.

SVS did better in one of the small prefab listening rooms (“cabins”) in Halle 3. The 5.1.2 loudspeaker array (all SVS, of course) included two Ultra Evolution Titan floorstanders in front ($4000), an Ultra Evolution Center ($800), two Ultra Evolution Nanos ($900) for surrounds, two Ultra Evolution Elevations ($900) as height channels, and a pair of SB17-Ultra RIEvolution subwoofers ($2700 each.) The AV receiver was a Marantz Cinema 40 ($3500) and discs were played on a vintage Oppo. The demo began with a movie (A Star Is Born) but soon made its way to a Steve Wilson immersive mix that gave much more of a sense of the potential for spatial music to provide an audiophile experience.

But there was a full-bore immersive audio experience at High End 2025 for a lucky few who had planned ahead and signed up for Kii Audio’s demo in a large Black Box Theater kind of space, accessorized with abstract, dimly glowing sculptural forms suspended from the high ceiling. The small number of reserved spots had been long claimed by the time the show began (there were seats for 20 at a time and the Munich show reportedly had close to 23,000 visitors this year), but I showed up anyway on Friday morning to beg and plead. The guy at the door pointed to an empty seat in the back row and I sat down just as the lights were going down.

The 7.1.4 speaker array included a trio of Kii Three speakers for the front left, center, and right channels with BXT active bass stands, plus a total of eight Kii Sevens for the surrounds, rears, and four height channels. (The total estimated cost of the loudspeakers was €80,000.) A Lyngdorf MP60 processor ($15,600) sent signal to the powered speakers via Ethernet.

With only the dim illumination afforded by those hanging sculptures, the music began. I had no idea of what to expect but recognized it immediately—an audio show staple of recent years, “Liberty” by the Norwegian singer/pianist/songwriter Anette Askvik. Askvik’s pure, plaintive, unadorned vocal, sparingly accompanied by electric piano, cello, sax, and minimal percussion, filled the space completely, enveloping the audience in a sensual embrace. It was ineffably beautiful. A second song by the same artist followed, then the house lights came up to a round of appreciative applause. And there she was in a bright yellow dress—Askvik herself, along with the engineer responsible for the immersive mix. She spoke convincingly about how she felt the engineering we’d just experienced had advanced the musical meaning of her music.

The Pure Audio Blu-ray disc, which holds both 7.1.4 Atmos and Auro-3D versions of the program, as well as 5.1 DTS-HD and high-resolution LPCM stereo programs was on sale at a booth near the theater and I practically flung my credit card in the direction of the salesman without asking the price. This is progress. This is good.

ANDREW QUINT’S BEST OF SHOW

Best Sound (Cost no object)

The Clarisys Room. No question. This system, featuring the six module Clarisys Audio Atrium loudspeakers ($785,000) plus VAC electronics, an Accuphase DF75 active crossover, Pink Faun and Lampizator digital components, a Kronos/MySonic Lab analog front end, and AudioQuest cables, was bound to impress simply for its complexity, cost, and ability to render large-scale music without any suggestion of stress or compression. But it may have been the natural rendering of space that was most impressive: I felt as if I could get up from my seat and walk forward among the orchestral players or big band musicians I was listening to. Remarkably, the effect was just as good with small groups. This was as convincing a simulacrum of live music—any kind of live music—as I’ve ever heard.

Best Sound (Cost considered)

In the Real (Audio) World where most of us live, the capacity to play music that’s loud and low is an eternal challenge. If the family or condo association doesn’t constrain you, the typical listening room will. The speakers from Silent Pound—both the Bloom stand mount (€14,900) and the Challenger II floorstander (€28,000) take the room out of the equation, without any room treatment, to a remarkable degree.

Most Significant Trend

Maybe it was just some sort of sampling error but, 60 years after Oskar Heil invented the technology, it seems like utilization of Air-Motion Transformer (AMT) high-frequency drivers, is becoming increasing common. Even just a decade ago, they were sort of exotic. I don’t think I heard the word “beryllium” spoken once the entire weekend.

Most Random Demonstration Music Trend

For as long as I can remember, female jazz vocals have been the favorite genre in stereo stores and audio shows, so much so that it’s become a cliché. For some reason, deep-voiced men were all the rage in Munich. If I hear “16 Tons” one more time, I can’t be responsible for my actions. Is the antidote and hour or two of Nora and Diana?

Standing just over 10 inches on their stands the Onkyo GX-30ARC make for a relatively large desktop speaker – when compared to those the average consumer is used to seeing.

By audiophile standards, this pair of active speakers is tiny. And smaller yet, the little brother to the GX-30, the GX-10DB comes in 2 inches shorter and $100 cheaper – albeit without an HDMI ARC connection.

Both models are available in White or Black with plastic bases that have wood-like finish that matches accordingly. The fit and finish here seems quite congruent with their place in the market, that is steps were clearly taken to ensure this remained an economical product, but its been executed well and with taste.

This two-box system has 50 watts of power on tap. Now, that may not seem like much but the engineers here opted to focus on efficiency. To get the most out of every watt, they chose to dispense with the traditional step of converting the digital signal to analog and then amplifying the analog signal.

What Onkyo has done instead is simply run the PCM input signal straight into the amp which then modulates the output and drives the transducers. In the analog path between the amp and driver, a low-pass filter is applied.

Keep in mind, this means that if an analog signal is input to the speakers, this signal will first go through an A to D converter before being introduced to the amps.

For this reason, Onkyo recommends sending a digital signal to the GX-30s – although they do have a single ended input with phono EQ.

Each speaker has two amplifiers on-board: one 17-watt amplifier for the woofer and 8 watts for the tweeter.

Supported bit rate and sampling frequency is limited to a maximum of 24 and 48, respectively, however higher resolution files are simply down sampled.

Touching a bit more on the handling of digital signals, I found the best sonic results streaming from a Wiim Pro Plus via an optical connection.

This configuration allowed me to fix the maximum output bit rate and sampling frequency allowing the Pro Plus to handle the task of down sampling.

Presuming this configuration to be less likely than configured on a desktop, I chose to do most of my listening in the near field at my desk with the GX-30s hooked up to my laptop.

Okay, getting into the sonic characteristics a little more, there were two qualities that stood out most.

The first one and the main reason why I believe this pair of speakers would make for a nice introduction to a fledgling audiophile is the blackness of the background.

Noise in the background is one of those sonic traits that you don’t necessarily even recognize until its gone.

Even if you’re not able to articulate it, this is certainly something that would grab your attention if previously unfamiliar with hi-fi.

The second quality was that of the bass. Now, I’m not talking super deep bass – we are dealing with a 4-inch woofer after all. But starting around 60 Hz there’s plenty of bass energy and its remarkably articulate.

Admittedly, without support down to say 20 Hz, they don’t offer a ton of heft in the bass and lack extension, but – for what they are – I was impressed.

This was most notable when listening to Force of Habit, from Barker’s Stochastic Drift album. On larger, more powerful systems, this track hits you in the chest and although the chest thump was lacking on the GX-30s, it did cause me to raise my eyebrows.

Where the port makes the hand-off to the woofer there’s a bit of a dip before swinging back up and remaining relatively flat through the balance of the frequency spectrum.

This dip means some of the finer details in this 100 to 200 Hz range go unnoticed and takes away from some of the timbral characteristics of instruments that play here.

As I just mentioned, the response of the speakers past 200 Hz is relatively flat with a very subtle lift through the mids.

This subtle lift in the middle presents clear and detailed vocals – another trait that those less familiar with hi-fi will almost certainly take note of.

The track on my notepad referencing this characteristic was Dominoes from Lorde’s 2021 album, Solar Power. In addition to articulate vocals with presence, another note here was how delicately the GX-30s presented to music – there was a light airiness to most everything I heard through these speakers.

Vocals were again delicately on display with Mentissa’s single Et Bam. Along with the gentle presentation of her voice, the GX-30s demonstrated their ability to disappear, generating a detailed and believable holographic image of the performance.

If there’s anywhere where this pair of speakers fall short it’s the upper range of the frequency spectrum, admittedly this is partly to blame on the inferior streaming source – that being my PC – as streaming from the Wiim Pro Plus mostly eliminated the faults present here.

Chief among them was a slightly grainy sound, although this varied greatly from recording to recording. It just felt as if the speaker was reaching – like it was on the limit.

In addition to this, rather than continuing the subtle drop after the mid lift, the engineers here chose to add a little lift around 6.5 kHz. This is often done to try and render ‘clarity’, and I would argue it’s at the expense of sounding believable.

Don’t get me wrong, these things still punch up; my job is to let y’all know what to expect if you buy a pair and you’re just not gonna get perfection for 350 bucks.

If your looking for some enjoyable listening while at your desk, I’d argue that with their attractive modern minimalist design, the Onkyo Creator Series GX-30ARC Desktop Speakers are certainly worth considering for your shortlist.

With a gentle airiness and impeccable imaging, I frequently ended up with a smile on my face throughout the day with them as an addition to my workspace.

And, yeah, these definitely whet my palette for what Onkyo has coming out later this year in the Icon Series – which consists of a pre-amp, stereo power amp, and a streaming integrated.

Thanks for sticking around and letting me share what I heard while reviewing this product.

And if you made it this far you might seriously consider subscribing to our print magazine – there’s a link in the description.

Oh, don’t forget to make listening fun again.

On the curved rear of the cabinet, there are four extremely hefty speaker terminals for bi-wiring or bi-amping, which can accept bare wire, spade connectors, or banana plugs. Above them is an assertive ‘Continuous Flare’ bass reflex port tuned to 44Hz.

The front baffle, meanwhile, features a tweeter above a mid/bass driver in a long-established manner. The soft dome tweeter is, at 29mm, unusually large for a speaker of this size – and it takes inspiration from the original Kore design. It functions without the magnetic oil usually present in a dome tweeter design to provide both cooling and resonance damping. Still, DALI reckons it can manage without it and cites the improved speed of coil movement and enhanced dynamic response as compelling reasons. 

The mid/bass driver beneath it is, at 165mm, a sizable unit too. It’s made of the paper-and-wood-fibre material that DALI’s been refining for years and has that customary rusty reddish-brown colour. But in this application, it is referred to as a ‘Clarity Cone’. It features five indentations that render it asymmetrical and thus more resistant to the resonances that symmetrical cones can be prone to. The driver features a potent double-magnet system that, says DALI, better focuses the magnetic field and reduces losses – and it also uses the company’s patented ‘SMC’ (soft magnetic compound) material in its motor system to minimise the braking effects that the more commonly used iron can introduce to voice-coil movement. 

Dramatic looking

It’s quite a dramatic-looking driver array, but if you’re not keen on seeing it, there are cloth grilles behind which you can hide it. That would be a shame, although the fact that DALI, unlike most of its competitors, doesn’t use magnetic fixings but rather three physical lugs to keep the grille in place spoils the ungrilled look just a little. Lug holes are never a beautiful thing.

So, the Rubikore 2 is a two-way design with a nominal impedance of 4 ohms and an ever-so-slightly tricky 87dB/W/m sensitivity. According to DALI, the frequency response is 50Hz – 26kHz, with crossover occurring at 2.8kHz. Mundorf-sourced parts provide suitable fettling for the crossover, but there’s no sign of the SMC-Kore crossover inductors fitted to the floorstanding Rubikore 6 and Rubikore 8 models. 

Attached to a Naim Uniti Star using QED XT40i speaker cable, positioned on a pair of Custom Design FS 104 stands, and pointing dead ahead—DALI is one of those few loudspeaker brands that doesn’t suggest you toe in its products towards your listening position—the Rubikore 2 waste no time in setting their stall out. And what a neat, tidy, and well-stocked stall it turns out to be.

There’s no genre of music these DALI refuse to get on with, and no recording is too rough and ready to be a lost cause. No matter what you listen to – and during the course of this test I listened to everything from Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Price [New Amsterdam] and The Smile’s Wall of Eyes [XL] to Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite (Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin/Lorin Maazel) [Deutsche Grammophon] and Up For a Bit with the Pastels [Glass] – the Rubikore 2 are balanced, organised and non-judgemental. If you like it, they like it too.

High circumstance

Detail levels are high in every circumstance – and, no matter how fleeting or deeply buried in the mix, the DALI can put the details into convincing context every time. The soundstage they create is, given the right stuff to work with, notably well-organised and considerably larger on the left/right axis than the speaker cabinets’ physical boundaries. Tonality is carefully neutral, which means the only heat or suggestion of chilliness you might hear comes from the recording you’re listening to. 

There’s some careful management of low-frequency impact – some competing designs will undoubtedly hit harder and with more substance. Still, no price-comparable alternative controls its low-end activity more carefully. Bass sounds are full-bodied, loaded with variation and straight-edged at the moment of attack – and consequently, the Rubikore 2 describe rhythms with absolute positivity and conviction. Momentum is such that the recording motor goes along most naturally and unforcedly. And when push comes to shove, the DALI can summon proper bottom-end impact – but it’s always in the service of the recording, rather than to intimidate.

The opposite end of the frequency range has more than enough substance to balance out the undoubted brilliance and bite the Rubikore 2 brings to treble sounds. There’s genuine shine and drive when a recording demands it—but, again, it’s properly controlled and never threatens to get out of hand, even if you like to listen at reckless volumes. 

In between, the DALI communicate midrange information in a manner quite easily described as ‘lavish’. They reveal an absolute stack of information, parse it confidently, and seem to understand a vocalist’s motivations completely. They’re eloquent and expressive with singers of all types, and their confidence where soundstaging is concerned means there’s generally a pocket of space in which a vocalist can operate. This elbow room is never at the expense of the unity of the presentation, though – there’s nothing remote or estranged about how the Rubikore 2 positions a voice. 

Journey to the bottom of the range

The journey from the bottom of the frequency range to the top is smooth like a dewdrop – the crossover point is imperceptible, and the DALI don’t over- or understate any area. They have the effortlessly deep-breathing dynamic potency to put significant distance between the quietest and loudest, most intense recording passages – always handy when Igor Stravinsky is involved. Most impressive is the casual, unforced, and utterly direct way in which the Rubikore 2 demonstrate their command over almost every aspect of music-making.

Some listeners will mistake this even-handed, poised and uncoloured presentation for lacking passion or engagement. Others will want a bit more bang for their buck – although they’re not an undemonstrative listen, these DALIs. Still, they aren’t about to demean themselves with unwarranted low-frequency activity or unnecessary forcefulness. What they are about is as faithful a rendition of music and as complete an explanation as possible of the electronics driving them as possible, which is, for most listeners, as much as they might realistically hope for. Or, that’s how it seems to me. 

Specs & Pricing

Type: Two-way; bass reflex ported stand-mount loudspeaker
Driver complement: 1 x 29mm soft dome tweeter; 165mm ‘Clarity Cone’ paper/wood pulp mid/bass driver
Frequency response: 50Hz – 26kHz
Crossover frequency: 2.8kHz
Impedance: 4 Ohms nominal
Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m
Finishes: High gloss white; high gloss black; high gloss maroon; natural walnut
Dimensions (HxWxD): 350 x 195 x 335mm
Weight: 9.5kg/each
Price: £2,299, $3,630, €2,598 per pair

Manufacturer DALI A/S

www.dali-speakers.com 

Okay – coming in at 10 inches high, 8 inches wide, and 10 inches deep, this little standmount has some surprising heft at 18 pounds. The unexpected mass is attributed to its single-piece, 3-D printed, multi-layer high-mass non-resonant cabinet; here, seen in black for just under $1,000 per pair, but available in red or brown  for about $250 more per pair.

The complement of drivers consists of a 1” wide-dispersion dome tweeter, a 6.5” mid/bass driver with a stiff yet lightweight polypropylene cone, and dual inertially balanced 8” passive radiators.

Exploiting the benefits of 3-D printing, Chesky employs tessellation diffraction control technology on the front baffle surrounding the tweeter. This ensures any diffraction the font baffle may encounter is diffused in a way to ensure the sounds arrival to the listening position is outside the window of the Haas Effect. This helps the speaker remain aurally invisible.

The industrial design of the LC1 is a bit ‘form follows function’  and therefore presents with a slight utilitarian appeal. That said, the finish is not lacking in quality and the binding posts on the back of the speakers felt quite robust.

And for a first go of it, my preference would be for a speaker designer to highlight the speaker’s function, leaving form for future iterations.

Highlighting function is precisely what Lucca did when designing this speaker. Bouncing his ideas off veterans in the industry, not cutting any corners regarding internal wiring and crossover circuits, and studying for a summer under the tutelage of Dr. Edgar Choueiri, head of Princeton University’s 3D Audio & Applied Acoustics Lab.

The culmination of which is the Chesky Audio LC1.

Sound Quality

Okay, so how do the LC1s sound? Well, let me put it this way, if you’re one who maintains allegiance to your favorite bands and musicians regardless of how poorly they’re recorded, you’re likely to be disappointed here.

I posit Chesky’s premise for the LC1 was to design a speaker that recreated recordings as faithfully as possible. Therefore, the sound from sub-par recordings was underwhelming and sometimes harsh – that is, the LC1 doesn’t go out of its way to make bad recordings  sound good.

However, if an engineer knocked it out of the park, the LC1s were right there with it, rounding the bases – ushering in a grand slam. Every minute detail was delivered to the listener’s  ears including the delicate sonic signature of the environment around the performers – even if that space was sometimes artificial (as in studio recordings).

I’ve heard tell of techniques used by engineers to artificially create space in the studio, but I’ve  rarely heard a distinct difference in the sonic signature of these varying techniques as they’re typically quite subtle and low in level.

The LC1s presented the music so transparently that I could hear engineers’ varying ability to pull of the ‘illusion of space’ and in most cases it wasn’t subtle. If this was done poorly, the tool used to create spaciousness did remain ambiguous; it just sounded artificial.

As an audiophile who loves the pursuit of finding great music that’s well recorded, with the LC1s in my listening room I found myself going down several rabbit holes of musical discovery. Typically, this wasn’t by discovering a new artist or genre, but by finding a record label that  took care during the recording process to provide the listener with a beautiful and faithful recreation of the music.

And when this was done, well… it was quite an experience on the LC1s. Such a small speaker having the ability to recreate a soundspace you could lose yourself in left for a really enjoyable experience.

Take for instance the Cosmic American Derelicts Album The Twain Shall Meet. Recorded by Soundkeeper Recordings in a 19^th century barn in Northwest Connecticut using a simple 2 mic setup.

The LC1s render the music in a lifelike manner; performers are resolutely positioned on stage without each sounding isolated and vocals were crisp and well balanced with the instrumentation.

Another track featuring fantastic instrumentation is Lainey Wilson’s 2023 single, Wildflowers and Wild Horses. However, this time the mix was a little on the hot side (as with most pop music) and that’s precisely how the LC1s presented it.

I know from listening to the Cosmic American Derelicts album that the LC1s have no trouble putting out through the middle of the double bass  range before rolling off, yet here the bass was down at least  5dB – causing the track to sound a bit etiolated .

In addition to a spacious presentation, the LC1s meticulously rendered dynamics in an engaging and realistic manner.

The presentation of these dynamics was most notable when listening to the opening track from Latvian Radio Big Band’s Album, Big Band Minimalism. In the past when I’ve heard this track, trombone soloist Magnus Wiklund sounded as coming more from within the rest of the band. On the LC1s, I heard Wiklund out in front of the band for his solo – a more plausible rendition. It was subtle but distinct.

The frequency response the LC1s presented a remarkably transparent view of the music. Board flat from 50Hz to 20kHz; although there’s a pretty steep roll-off below 50Hz – I’d expect nothing less from a speaker this size.

The flat response to 20kHz can come across as a bit intense to some listeners. Although I often find that this is most fatiguing on equipment that lacks an ability to present the lower octaves on an even playing field and, therefore, I didn’t find myself getting tired of listening to the LC1s. Likely, because they’re flat, not elevated or fluctuating in the midrange and treble.

Conclusion

With their ability to aurally disappear with good recordings  and remarkably render spaciousness, track after track the LC1s morphed my listening room into something new, allowing me to experience the music in a more lifelike way time and time again.

If you’re new to high-end audio or if you’re more of an  analytical listener, look no further for a speaker that’s willing to give you the music – unadulterated. The quantity of quality music that I discovered while the LC1s were in my listening room reinvigorated me and got me excited to listen to music once again.

Well done, Lucca! If this is your first stop on the speaker design train, I can’t wait to see where the next stop on  the line is.

Thanks for being here and listening to my review of the Chesky Audio LC1 Bookshelf Monitor.

And don’t forget to make listening fun, again!

Enjoy the show!

Nirvana A

Joseph Audio showed its $52k three-way four-driver Pearl Graphene Ultra floorstander, driven by Doshi Audio electronics, sourced by a J.Sikora table, and wired by

Cardas. Despite being a little shouty, forward, and abrasive on vocal fortes (the first instance of what was to become a show-wide trend), the Pearl Graphene Ultra had superb delicacy on cymbals and decent though slightly loose and underdamped bass. Midrange was lifelike on Blossom Dearie “Do I Love You,” but still piercing on transients.

Nirvana B

The $200k Credo Cinema LTM multi-driver line source was driven by EMM Labs electronics and sourced by EMM Labs, Meitner, Feickert, and DS Audio in a very large room. Once again, the sound was piercing on vocal fortes and slide guitar transients.

Nirvana C

Acora Acoustics huge, five-driver, granite-enclosed $218k VRC, augmented by rears and center and sub and driven by CAT electronics, had huge depth of stage on “Avalon.” The speakers disappeared; their sound was dark, sweet, vast, and beautiful, with next to none of that piercing quality on transients, even on “Coal Train”! A contender.

Utopia D

Wilson Benesch’s £100k Omnium, a tall, slim, seven-driver floorstander in a biocomposite monocoque enclosure (with a silk-carbon hybrid tweeter and isobaric woofers), was being driven by Audia Flight electronics and sourced by WB’s fabulous GMT One record-playing system. The sound was very open, with lovely treble, a huge stage, and notably good decay. The speakers were facing straight forward (no toe-in) in a giant room, so the center image on vocals was a little diffuse. Bass was also a bit thumpy and cool in timbre.

Prosperity

The $54k, two-and-a-halfway, five-driver (one diamond tweeter, four 7” ceramic mid/woofers) Marten Parker Quintet Diamond floorstander, driven and sourced by Luxman and wired by Jorma boasted a neutral balance, surprisingly natural timbre on female vocal, and fine definition in the bass. A good showing.

Euphoria

Another set of Acora Acoustics’ $218k, three-way, five-driver (one 1.25″ beryllium dome tweeter, two 4.5″ midranges, and two 12″ woofers) VRC floorstander in a massive, solid-granite, ported enclosure was here being driven superbly well by VAC tubes, and sourced by Wadax and an SAT turntable. Although I haven’t been wowed by these speakers in the past, this year’s showing was an unalloyed triumph. On a cover of “Sound of Silence,” the bass went incredibly deep, midrange timbre was gorgeous, instruments were extremely dense in color, dimensional in imaging, and vast in staging. The overall balance may have been a bit dark, but so what? Despite a hint of room mischief on the lowest notes of the organ, the incredibly lifelike staging and imaging of the choir on the Rutter Requiem, which seemed to be huge in number, freestanding in space, individuated in presence, conjoined in harmony, and nearly life-sized in stature, made for what was perhaps the most realistic reproduction of a large choir I’ve ever heard. This was the best AXPONA sound yet and certainly a BOS contender.

Schaumburg C

The $65k Stratton Element 12 two-way stand-mount was being driven by Burmester amplifiers and Acoustic Signature’s new Apex phonostage preamp and sourced by an Acoustic Signature Ascona turntable with TA-9000 arm and MCX4 cart. This was a very good-sounding small system, aided no doubt by Acoustic Signature’s new phonostage and its wonderful table and arm. The sonics took me a bit by surprise given the speaker’s configuration and the largish size of the room it was parked in, but the Stratton had dense dark tone color, good though not earthshaking bass, and a very attractive treble without bite or edge (for once). A very nice showing.

Schaumburg D

Estelon’s $296k Extreme Mk II, 5-driver (two 11” Accuton CELL aluminum-sandwich woofers, one 11” Accuton CELL aluminum-sandwich mid/woofer, one 7” Accuton CELL ceramic-membrane midrange, one 1” Accuton CELL diamond tweeter), four-way floorstander in a large, ported, hourglass-shaped, marble-composite enclosure with remote-controlled height-adjustable tweeter/midrange module was driven by Vitus Signature Series SM-103 MK.II monoblock amplifiers and an SL-103 linestage preamp, sourced by a Vitus SD-025 MK.II DAC and two Sonorus ATR10 mkII tape decks with Arian Jansen sampler tapes, and wired with Crystal’s Da Vinci cable and Infinity power cords. On the tapes, the sound was extremely open and present, with bass that was very powerful and extended albeit a little underdamped and a mite thumpy and a midrange and treble that were highly detailed but (yet again) edgy and aggressive on fortes. The tapes had great staging outside the speakers, thanks to Jansen’s Holographic Imaging software-treatment of the high-res digital files from which the tapes were made, but virtually everything recorded on them suffered from that same upper-midrange brightness and aggressiveness. I thought at first this might be due to off-axis diffraction, as I was initially sitting to the side, but when I asked distributor Aldo Filippelli what setting he was using with the Vitus amps—which never sounded even remotely bright or edgy when I used them in my system—he confessed they were running in “rock” mode rather than Vitus’ “traditional” Class A. I immediately asked him to change the setting, and the result was like a different system—far smoother, more neutral in balance and natural in timbe, without a trace of brightness in the upper mids and treble. It still wasn’t one of the very best sounds I heard at the show (the room was too big, IMO), but it was a whole lot better.

Schaumburg E

Dali’s $120k Core five-driver floorstander driven and sourced by McIntosh electronics surprised me. This was a good sounding room—dark and rich in color in the midband and treble, just a tad vague in center imaging, and a bit overblown in the bass, but very listenable with a wide soundstage and decent resolution. A fine showing.

Schaumburg F

The five fabric-driver (two 12″ woofers, two 6.5″ midrange drivers, and one 1″ soft-dome tweeter in an D’Appolito array), aluminum-enclosed, $165k Stenheim Reference Ultime Two, biamped by four VTL 450 monoblocks, sourced by dCS and Gran Prix Audio, and wired by Nordost, was sensational last year (Robert gave it a BOS award) and (after a late Thursday night recalibration by the great Stirling Trayle) proved to be just as wonderful sounding in 2025. From Robbie Robertson’s electric Sinematic (with Van the Man) to Hans Theessink’s mostly acoustic Jedermann Remixed to a completely acoustic Blossom Dearie and all stops between, these were best-of-show-worthy contenders, with super solidity and three dimensionality top to bottom, uniformly rich dense tone color, outstanding (and outstandingly well controlled and articulated) bass, sweet treble that never shrieked at you (as the tweets in so many other rooms did), and the phenomenal dynamic range that makes these very high sensitivity transducers so alive sounding. Once again, the Stenheims were instant Best of Show contenders.

Innovation

The $100k Monitor Audio Hyphen with 11 drivers (an AMT tweeter surrounded by six two-inch midranges—called the M array—on a center strut and four 8-inch force-canceling woofers built into the stone-acrylic side towers, making for an H-shaped form factor) was driven by McIntosh and sourced by Bluesound. The room the Hyphen was being shown in was very loud and busy, full of talkative people, so the sound of the speakers was hard to suss out. However, from what I could hear, they were quite neutral and natural, one of the few transducers I heard that seemed lifelike in balance. I liked them in spite of the noise.

Connection

The $50k, four-driver, three-and-a-halfway Sonus faber Stradivari floorstander with its distinctively thin, wide, gorgeously finished, soundboard-like enclosure was being driven by ARC 330M monoblocks and an ARC Ref 10 preamp, and sourced by dCS, Clearaudio, and DS Audio. The sound was simply gorgeous—dark in balance but superbly dense in color, texture, dynamics, body, dimensionality, and staging. Meltingly beautiful on strings, high and low, it may not have been the last word in resolution, but it was breathtakingly lovely to listen to. A BOS contender.

Perfection Boardroom

Wilson Audio’s $367k seven-driver Chronosonic XVX in a tall, immensely adjustable “enclosure” was being driven by D’Agostino electronics and sourced by dCS and Clearaudio with DS Audio cart. Wire was by Transparent. The XVX produced a dark solid sound with notably good speed and impact on transients. Bass was a little wooly in the narrow room in which it was ensconced. The XVX was not as rich, rounded, and ravishing in timbre and texture as the Sonus faber Stradavari with ARC—just a touch leaner and drier by comparison—but it was still quite listenable.

Third Floor

Despite being parked in a relatively tiny corner room of a large room, the four-driver $55k B&W 801 D4 Signature, driven by Marantz electronics and sourced by a Marantz DAC, had a very listenable sound—scarcely the last word in resolution or dynamics or staging but as smooth and sweet as a really good FM tuner broadcast. It would be nice to hear these handsome looking and sounding speakers in a larger space where they weren’t jammed against and between walls.

Fourth Floor

The $63,400 YG Acoustics Hailey 3 three-driver three-way floorstander in two stacked and finely fitted together aluminum cabinets was driven by Zesto tube electronics and sourced by Zesto’s new tube DAC, with cables by Cardas. Despite bass leak-through from nearby rooms and the confines of a small narrow hotel room, the sound was impressively open, neutral, lively, pacey, and lifelike on Miles and Trane. Staging was limited by the room, but tonality was quite natural and appealing. A good showing for YG and for Zesto.

Von Schweikert’s demure, 6-driver, $59,000 VR.thirty floorstander with ceramic cones, a diamond tweeter, a rear-mounted ambient ribbon tweeter, and active bass was driven by Class A Westminster Labs electronics and sourced by a Lumin streamer and a Rockna DAC. The sound was reminiscent of the YG Hailey 3, in part because the VR.thirty was situated in the same small narrow room. It, too, was impressively neutral and lively with a little less tube bloom, of course, than the Zesto-driven Haley but with faster transients. Another very good showing.

The second pair of $63k YG Hailey 3 three-driver three-way floorstanders (in the same tiny room) was driven by Class D bel canto electronics. They had a beguiling warmth and body and chewiness and the same openness as the other pair on Willie Nelson “Blue Skies” vinyl and Greg Brown’s “Brand New 64 Dodge.” Another nice presentation.

The $89k Altec Lansing Ribbonacci bipolar membrane loudspeaker with separate DSP’d woofers, driven by Lampizator tube electronics and sourced by a Method 4 DAC, was the fullest-bodied speaker I heard on Floor 4. It had rich dense tone color on all instruments, very lively dynamics, and a natural tonal balance. Though played a little too loud for me, it was still an outstanding system.

Fifth Floor

The $65k Cessaro Mendelssohn hybrid loudspeaker with compression-driver tweeter in a spherical horn and cone midrange and woofer, driven by Alieno tubes and sourced by a TW Acustic table and tonearm, had more stage depth than other speakers in small rooms.

Despite the too-loud playback level, the Cessaro was still marvelous on piano—extremely clear and natural. Unfortunately, voices had that Schaumburg edge on fortes, though they sounded well controlled at lower volume. All in all, a mixed bag that showed great potential for a larger space.

Bayz Audio’s always interesting-sounding, albeit plumbing-fixture-looking $60k Courante 2.0 omni, driven by Burmester, sourced by Burmester and Aurender, and wired by Shunyata, once again, exhibited that now-familiar shoutiness and edge on vocal and instrumental fortes, although the musicians were free standing and three-dimensional, as if not sourced by a loudspeaker. That omni effect alone made the Bayz worth a long listen, even if it was fighting the room and sometimes losing.

Sixth Floor

The $82.5k GIP 4165 replica of a WE full-ranger from the 1930s with a 105dB-sensitive 12” field-coil driver in a horn-loaded baffle with a separate TW 38 tweeter mounted atop the enclosure, driven by $55k 6L6 GIP amps and $48k GIP preamp, was being played piercingly loudly in a small hotel room! Though it had reasonably good timbre and dynamics on trumpet and piano, the excessive volume level obscured its virtues.

TriangleART’s $65k Metis loudspeaker with solid walnut spherical-horn-loaded midrange, ported cone woofer, and RAAL true ribbon tweeter was being driven by TriangleART’s tube electronics and a TA turntable. The Metis had good density of tone color on Diana Krall’s Live In Paris but, like the GIP 4165, was being played too loud in a small room, so sounded rather piercing on vocal and instrumental transients. Center imaging was also a little vague. That said and level aside, the sound was not unappealing.

Seventh Floor

The $70k Fourier Transform active loudspeakers with subs and amps is perhaps the weirdest speaker I’ve ever seen—a veritable jungle gym of 12 unenclosed cone drivers stacked atop each other, with an array of ribbons and planar tweeters to their sides and an outboard subwoofer. But surprise, surprise, the Fourier sounded great—open like an omni (which is what it is) with free-floating images of extremely natural timbre, save for the bass, where the subs were boxy and poorly blended. That aside, the Fourier Transforms were best-of-show realistic-sounding in the mids and treble.

Eleventh Floor

Italy’s $82k Albedo Audio Acclara SHS, a five-Accuton-driver three-way floorstander, developed quite a nice soundstage, wide and deep in a narrow room. Tonal balance was dark and moderately rich with a sweet treble. Instruments sounded dense in timbre and texture, and the bass was very deep going and well controlled on a Mino Cinélu drum album. A Tape Project tape of Nat King Cole and George Shearing was also impressive, though the Sonorus deck wasn’t quite as delicate in the upper mids as the Cinélu vinyl. Devin Hoff LP of standup bass was simply superb with very deep extension. A notably good-sounding room.

The $78k Rockport Lynx three-driver three-way floorstander with custom drivers and enclosure was being shown in two spaces. Here it was being driven by Absolare. The narrow room and large window behind the speakers weren’t helping, but aside from the usual brightness in the upper mids on fortes, the Lynxes were very detailed with excellent stage depth and height and deep going low end. Too bad about the room.

Twelfth Floor

The $91k ceramic- and diamond-driver Marten Mingus Quintet 2 floorstander, driven by Goldmund electronics and sourced by Goldmund and a Garrard 301, were very fast and finely detailed. Bass was overblown in this small space; timbre, neutral to slightly warm.

Fourteenth Floor

The $78k Rockport Lynx, making a second appearance here driven by Vinnie Rossi tube electronics, sourced by Innuous, and wired by AudioQuest, was splendid sounding, despite a bit of thickness in the bass—gorgeous on female voice and piano and in spite of the small size of the room, no shoutiness in the mids and treble. This was a better showing than the first Lynx. In fact, in spite of bass issues, it was one of the most natural and appealing sounds at the show.

Audio Note UK showed its large $65k AN-E/SPx Ltd. Field Coil two-way stand-mount driven by AN’s Meishu 300B integrated and sourced by AN digital and analog. For a two-way, the AN-E was surprisingly full range, with a seamless blend of hemp cone woofer and dome tweeter. Tremendously rich, clear, and dynamic on drum and synth (-6dB at 17Hz!), it was one of the surprises at AXPONA and one of the best two-way stand-mounts at the show.

Fifteenth Floor

The gigantic, $750,000, six-driver (one 1.1-inch diamond-coated beryllium dome tweeter, one 6-inch Gen 8 Magico Nano-Tec midrange, two 11-inch Gen 8 Magico Nano-Tec mid/woofs, and two 15-inch Gen 8 Magico Nano-Tec woofers) Magico M9s were housed in a nearly 8-foot-tall, 1000-pound (per side), oval-shaped, sealed enclosure of astonishingly complex and sophisticated construction. Driven by top-line D’Agostino electronics, sourced by top-line Wadax DAC, server, and player, and cabled by Vyda, the M9’s low end was big, powerful, and solid on solo double bass, with superb pitch definition and good timbre. However, the M9 suffered from the same aggressiveness in the upper-midrange/lower-treble that plagued so many other transducers at Schaumburg. Soundstaging was terrific, but that brightness and edginess on fortes with male and female voice, ensemble voices, and solo guitar made it sound as if the tweet were sticking out. The room (low ceiling and near sidewalls) and the relatively close listening area were not doing these massive speakers any favors. In a different room with a different setup, I’m sure the M9s would sound like a million bucks, which is virtually what they cost. In this oddball Schaumburg venue, not so much.

MBL’s $91k four-way 101 E MkII omnis, driven by MBL 9011 amps and sourced by its outstanding C41 streamer, sounded astonishingly realistic on voice! Not as rich in color as the Stenheims (in part, I think, because of the electronic bass trap Jeremy was using, which leaned down the midbass but, alas, also leaned down the lower midrange), but so boxlessly open, bloomy, and dimensional that Mark Knopfler sounded “there.”

Sixteenth Floor

The $120k Avantgarde Mezzo G3 two-way floorstander with spherical horn tweeter and woofer and powered and DSP’d dual-12” bass, driven by Phasemation MA-2000 tubes and sourced by Wadax, was just plain terrific. A BOS right off the bat. No horn coloration, dark gorgeous tone color, rich texture on voice and instrumentals, and a dynamic range and ease that were nonpareil. The Mezzo was also incredibly detailed, effortlessly differentiating previously undifferentiated background vocals on “I Heard You Paint Houses” from Sinematic. The best I’ve heard these speakers sound and a BOS contender.

The $105k Vivid Giya G1 Spirit, driven by Audionet electronics, and sourced by Master Fidelity DAC and Kronos table, had an appealingly light, sprightly, open presentation devoid of darkness but lacking some bass, midbass, and lower midrange color, weight, and body. Nonetheless, it was quite expansive in staging and boxless-sounding bottom to top.

The five-driver, four-way $250k Gauder DARC 250 was being driven by Soulution electronics, including the new 717 amps. It was hard to tell for sure on speakers I’m not highly familiar with, but the amps seemed to be absolutely colorlessly neutral, supremely detailed (brushes on drumheads had to be heard to be believed), and breathtakingly natural on “Take Five” and other jazz cuts, completely disappearing the Gauders as sound sources. With terrific treble and midrange timbre and astounding resolution (though not at all analytical), the new amps were phenomenal!

Best of Show

Acora Acoustics VRC loudspeakers driven by VAC electronics. Runner-up: Stenheim Reference Ultime 2 loudspeaker driven by VTL electronics.

Best Buy

Sonus faber Stradavari loudspeaker driven by ARC electronics.

Most Innovative

Fourier Transform omnidirectional loudspeaker driven by its own dedicated amps.

McIntosh PS1K Subwoofer

At the heart of the massive new PS1K subwoofer are two 13″ drivers featuring McIntosh’s proprietary  Low Distortion High Performance (LD/HP^®) Magnetic Circuit Design, which reduces distortion and improves power handling. The woofers incorporate multi-layer carbon-fiber cones for superior rigidity and resist flex even at high outputs. The PS1K is driven by two 500-watt Class D amplifiers. A sealed box design and nearly 1.5″-thick enclosure baffle assist to eliminate port noise and vibration. With balanced and unbalanced subwoofer connections, adjustable filters, and parametric EQ, it can be fine-tuned to suit individual listening environments and preferences. McIntosh’s signature  Power Guard^®  and  Sentry Monitor  technologies are built into the PS1K to protect against overloading and short circuits. Additionally, the PS1K’s eco-friendly signal-sensing and Power Control technology enhance convenience and power management. With a sleek high-gloss black finish, carbon trim, and an aluminum base.
Price: $35,000.  mcintoshlabs.com

These techniques worked well. YG speakers have been widely esteemed for their low distortion, as well as tonal neutrality and superb imaging. On the other hand, YG was sometimes accused of building “analytical” products that failed to fully capture the music’s emotional palette. The Carmel 2 I reviewed some years ago was a case in point. Though it was far more accessible than the original Carmel, the speaker lacked a certain warmth.

This fulcrum-teetering might have continued indefinitely except that in 2017, much to the surprise of many in the industry, the company ushered in a new set of audiophile-minded owners. In 2020 a forward-thinking designer named Matthew Webster was appointed CEO. At that point, although you’d never know it from the external appearance of the speakers, everything changed.

To be sure, Webster respected everything Geva had achieved. Yet he was determined to take the company in a new direction. Indeed, he had in mind a fundamentally different mission for YG speakers. Instead of being focused on delivering technical merits, he wanted them, in his own words, to “make magic.” That is, in addition to their already-impressive technical virtues, YG speakers had to deliver goosebumps. The mission had swung from technical to emotional.

Of course, having a musically oriented goal is not uncommon for speaker manufacturers. The trick for Webster was to discover what design, manufacturing, and evaluation techniques would result in the magic he sought. For answers to these questions, Webster turned to what he knew best: computational modeling.

That might sound strange, turning to digital technology to explore the origins of emotionally impactful analog listening. But Webster is, at heart, a technical creature. After all, he holds a PhD in astrophysics from Cambridge University. (That’s right, he’s an actual rocket scientist.) Yet for him, technology and measurements are a means to an end—a musical end—rather than the end itself. As Webster points out, “there are many speakers that measure well by traditional metrics but that don’t move the listener.”

Through computational modeling (Webster wrote his doctoral dissertation on large-scale modeling of the universe), Webster felt he could determine which design techniques resulted in speakers that moved the emotional needle. Before tackling a revamp of the Reference Series 2 models, he decided to test this premise on a new line called Peaks. The Peaks models would come in at a lower price point than was possible given the materials and construction of the Reference line. And it would give Webster a platform on which to answer the question: “What can we achieve with computer modeling?”

One of the big advantages Webster saw in computer modeling was the ability to “build” a large number of virtual prototypes. For the Peaks series, he created 450 prototypes, a prospect that would be unthinkable in the physical domain. Of course, there were physical prototypes as well—about one for every 50 virtual prototypes. These were necessary because, for one thing, you can’t listen to a computer model. For another, it was imperative to measure the actual behavior of a prototype to ensure it matched the model’s predictions.

Along the way, Webster found that typical computer models were neither sufficiently accurate nor comprehensive enough to capture and explain a speaker’s behavior. The model grew more complex. For instance, it became multi-dimensional, incorporating not only physical properties but also electronic and magnetic ones. Soon, the model became so complex it couldn’t be built on or manipulated by computers available to mere mortals.

Fortunately, these days one need not purchase a supercomputer for jobs like this. Cloud computing has made the necessary power accessible on demand—and you only have to pay for what you use. Ultimately, YG ended up ganging together 2000 GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) from the cloud to run the model. The Peaks series consumed 4.5 million GPU-hours.

Webster also found traditional measurement techniques wanting. To get a better picture of a speaker’s actual performance, he invested some of the YG’s newfound capital in tools like multi-point laser vibrometry and high-speed photography capable of generating 200,000–500,000 time-sliced images per second. The company always complemented these techniques with extensive listening. Otherwise, there was no way of knowing if the ultimate mission had been achieved.

As the Peaks designs were being finalized, Webster simultaneously put more capital to work on a revamped and expanded factory. He built a state-of-the-art production facility to match YG’s now state-of-the-art R&D process. For instance, the initial cuts of the aluminum cabinet pieces are done with a waterjet, which is faster, more economical, and more environmentally friendly. The resulting cutouts are then fashioned with the most advanced 4- and 5-axis lathes and tooling available; they deliver accuracy to an astonishing 0.004 millimeters.

As it turned out, the Peaks series proved to be a resounding sonic and marketing success. Webster, now confident of his R&D, evaluation and production processes, was emboldened to turn to the Reference series. Ambitiously, the company decided to upgrade the entire Series 2 to Series 3 status all at once. Among those new models was the mid-level Hailey 3 under review here. The speaker sells for $68,000 per pair.

  Like all Series 3 models, the Hailey 3 cabinet is built out of solid aluminum. However, there are in essence two aluminum cabinets with a gap between them. To deter ringing, the aluminum sheets that comprise the cabinets are pressed together with constrained-layer damping material in between. This accounts for the Hailey 3’s rare cabinet, which is stiff without sounding dead.

Drivers begin with the silk-dome tweeter, whose dome is set onto a delicate aluminum lattice frame. New for the Series 3 is a redesign of the bracing machined into the back side of the cone, which increases rigidity and decreases the cone’s mass. There is also a new, more intricate waveguide that was only made possible by the refined production techniques described above. The new waveguide results in less high-order distortion, which in turn yields smoother highs. The tweeter spans frequencies from 1.75kHz all the way up to 40kHz. This extended range ensures that the driver isn’t breaking up or experiencing phase shift in the audible band.

The aluminum-coned 7.25″ midrange and 11″ woofer are both carried over from the Hailey 2. The 90Hz crossover point between them means that the midrange is doing a lot of the work normally reserved for a woofer. However, the modeling, listening, and measurements showed that the design improves coherence and phase regularity in a critical portion of the audible band.

The crossover itself is entirely new. Custom inductor and capacitor designs are used throughout the circuit with attention to microphonics. For example, many of the inductors are potted and clamped to the circuit board. Also, caps were chosen after listening to wares from over 20 suppliers and the circuit includes custom foil capacitors made exactly to YG’s design. Even the circuit board traces were thickened.

But perhaps most significantly, computational modeling made it possible for YG to design a crossover with virtually perfect phase-matching between drivers. In the frequencies where two drivers overlap, they exhibit perfect pistonic synchronicity. YG identified this as an area that, if not just right, adversely impacts musical engagement.

So how does this re-fashioned Hailey sound? Pure, yes. But with newfound passion. On the first front, I felt like I was listening to a speaker that not only banishes impurities, but that shows off its quietude by getting out of the way of the music. Through the Hailey 3, I heard individual lines more clearly than I ever have in my system. These YGs deliver not just detail, but layered detail.

As an example, consider Peter Gabriel’s “Playing for Time.” When the orchestra comes in, it does so not as a single monolith but as a combination of interwoven instrumental lines. Through the YG’s, I heard elements of this musical lattice that I’d never heard before, even on other superb speakers.

After purity, the next thing I heard was refinement. Sound from the Hailey 3s is never unduly sharp, and this isn’t because anything is being softened. There are plenty of transients, and they hit with appropriate might. But there’s no artificial edginess whatsoever. One contributor is the newly configured tweeter, which is extremely well behaved. There’s no breakup in the audible range, no matter how hard this driver is pushed.

My ultimate test in this regard is the “stabbed” high piano notes on Michael Wolff’s “The Conversation.” For correct reproduction, they need to have real speed, definition, and fortitude. Yet most of the (few) speakers that can do that also exhibit breakup around those notes. Not the Hailey 3. The notes come across forcefully but cleanly—a rare feat. You may think your speakers excel in this area, but until you’ve heard something like the Hailey 3s, where the tweeter goes up to 40kHz and is therefore coasting in the audible band, you may never have heard true high-frequency refinement.

Meanwhile, the new waveguide does a splendid job of dispersing those upper frequencies. One benefit, in addition to exemplary imaging, is that the Hailey 3 has a comfortably wide sweet spot. No head-in-a-vise syndrome here!

Regarding bass, the YG excelled in all the areas you’d expect (and demand) from a speaker of this price. There’s timbral density, transient definition, power, and reach. The Hailey 3 is most definitely a full-range speaker. Further, low-end definition is such that I heard more timbral information from string basses than I’m used to hearing from just about any other speaker.

But the Hailey 3 has another bass quality that goes back to the virtue of refinement: The bass is sonorous. This is best appreciated in the context of a comparison. The excellent Wilson Sasha V also possesses the aforementioned bass qualities; but its character is entirely different. Instead of being sonorous, the Wilson is what I’d call gutsy. Which you prefer is a matter of personal preference. The larger point is that the YG’s bass is perfectly in keeping with the refined nature of the rest of the speaker.

As for the midrange, I wish every speaker was as neutral and revealing in this frequency range as the Hailey 3. What this speaker gives you is unforced transparency. The kind of transparency, as I mentioned earlier, that gives every musical line and instrument, no matter how buried in the mix, a chance to shine. On multiple occasions I found myself being carried away by these now-evident musical elements. Which was, after all, the whole point of the Series 3.

To better illustrate the engagement of which these speakers are capable, allow me to share a short anecdote. I have a listening group in my neighborhood that gathers from time to time to audition equipment that’s here for review. A rather large crowd turned out to hear the Hailey 3s, and everyone brought a musical sample of their choosing. Together, we listened to this familiar material. On multiple occasions, the group was so taken by the music that they erupted in spontaneous applause at the end of the piece. That’s a first here. The speakers do indeed “make magic.”

In appearance, the Hailey 3 doesn’t give the slightest hint at the behind-the-scenes transformation that created it. The speaker looks well-nigh identical to its predecessor. But don’t be fooled. From a philosophical, technological, and sonic perspective, the new speaker is a clear break from the past. With the Series 3, YG has made engagement and musicality its top priorities, enlisting science to achieve those goals without relinquishing what made YGs of the past special. Judging by the Hailey 3 performance, there is no doubt the new mission has been accomplished brilliantly.

Specs & Pricing

Type: 3-way sealed floorstander
Drivers: 11″ woofer, 7.25″ midrange, 1″ tweeter
Impedance: 4 ohms nominal
Power requirement: 25W min
Sensitivity: 87dB/1W/1m
Frequency response: 20Hz–40kHz
Weight: 200 lbs. each
Dimensions: 13″ x 48″ x 21″
Price: $68,000

yg-acoustics.com

Associated Equipment

Analog source: Lyra Etna cartridge, Goldmund Studietto turntable, Graham 2.2 tonearm
Digital source: Bryston BCD-3 CD player
Electronics: CH Precision I1 universal amplifier (phonostage, DAC, streamer, linestage, power amplifier)
Speaker: Wilson Sasha V
Cables and cords: Empirical Design
Footers: Goldmund Cones

Design

Subtle details indicates that this is the active version of Confidence 20:

• Black front baffle that matches the driver cover rings
• The ‘Y’ indicator on the front of the stand
• The ventilation pattern on the sides of the stand
• Controls and connections on the back of the stand

Amplifier

The amplifier is derived from our professional studio products:

• Pascal amplifier
• Dynaudio-designed front-end

It offers a massive 400W for the woofer and 150W for the tweeter, to ensure maximum performance from the renowned Confidence drivers. (Actually, it’s a 500W amplifier for the mid/woofer – we just limit the signal input to match the maximum excursion for the driver.)

The result

Plenty of headroom in the amplifier. Effortless reproduction – even at high SPL.

Amplifier

 The amp, controls and connections are integrated in the stand…

• The aluminium construction doubles as housing/heatsink
• It doesn’t take up crucial space in the loudspeaker cabinet

The result

The technically and visually pleasing integration of the amplifier in the stand offers the important side benefit of adding extra weight and stability, which further improves performance.

Tweeter

Being a Confidence speaker, the 20A of course features our state-of-the-art Esotar 3, the best ever version of our famous 28mm coated soft dome with Hexis.

The result

Air and space: superb resolution of treble details, great imaging, authentic transient response.

Dual-flared port

New ESDF port

• Re-engineered geometry, tuning, and integration with the cabinet
• Subjected to thorough iterative listening tests for each small change
• End-to-end exponential shape to minimize port noise…
  • Slightly lower output (smaller port diameter at the midpoint of the port)
  • By lowering the system resonance frequency (fb) and then adding a slight EQ above the fb, the output is easily re-gained. This is just another advantage of an active DSP controlled speaker

The result

Optimized airflow, better precision, and artefacts are virtually eliminated…resulting in vastly improved low bass performance.

If you think a bass port only influences bass performance…wait till you hear the calmness and clarity it brings to the reproduction of e.g. a female voice.

Filter tuning

Overall approach

• Keep it as simple as possible and only as complex as necessary
• As always for Dynaudio – aiming for optimum directivity and low listening fatigue

Digital filter facts and advantages

• Infinite ‘toolbox’: we aren’t limited to fixed values of analogue components; instead, we can choose exact values, slopes, EQs and more
• We can create seamless time alignment
• Advanced, tailor-made filters are simpler to realize in the digital domain
• Filter components don’t influence each other
• We’re using minimum phase Infinite Impulse Response filters with low Q, as they act and sound very much like passive filters, with a natural impulse response
• Acoustic crossover point: 2500Hz

The result

Huge sound stage. Great impulse response, clarity and imaging.

Connections

• Service port (for dealer/Dynaudio use only)
• AES3 digital output (XLR)
• AES3 digital input (XLR)
• XLR analogue input (balanced)

The result

A truly versatile system for all source types. All you need is a source with a volume control.

Controls

Digital channel

• For AES3 digital inputs select which channel each speaker will use by setting the switch to left or right

Sample-rate conversion

• ‘Off’
• The highest possible sound quality, as the sample-rate/resolutionfrom the source is left untouched in the signal processing. The internal sample-rate of Confidence 20A adapts to the source

• If the sample-rate/resolution change between tracks from the source, the speaker will mute shortly while adjusting for the new sample-rate
• ‘On’
• The signal will be sample-rate converted to the sample rate of Confidence 20A (24/192)
• This will prevent muting between tracks and give continuous/gapless playback

Analogue sensitivity

• Start by setting it to ‘Low’. If the sound is too quiet, change it to ‘Mid’ or ‘High’
• If the LED (the ‘Y’ on the front) starts flashing red, the analogue input is being In that case, turn down the ‘Analogue sensitivity’ switch again

Sound balance

• Available settings: ‘Dark’, ‘Neutral’ and ‘Bright’
• The sound balance of loudspeakers can change slightly (typically become smoother) once they have been used for a while
• If you adjust this when setting up the speakers, it might need to be re-evaluated at a later stage

Position

• ‘Free’: If the speaker is placed more than 50cm/20 in away from walls
• ‘Wall: If the speaker is closer than 50cm/20in to one wall
• ‘Corner’: If the speaker is closer than 50cm/20in to two walls (i.e. a corner)

Light

• The white ‘Y’ LED on front of the stand can be adjusted with this setting
• ’Off’ – The light will always be off

• ’Dim’
  • When the speaker is on, the light will be on but dimmed
  • When the speaker is off the light will be off
• ’On’
  • When the speaker is on, the light will be on with full brightness
  • When the speaker is off, the light will be off

Front Y Indicator

 The Front ‘Y’ LED indicator has multiple functions…

• White light (depending on ‘Light’ switch setting)

– Power on

• Flashing red (in sync with the signal)

– Clipping on analogue input

– In this case, turn down the ‘Analogue sensitivity’ switch, and/or turn down the volume control on the source/preamp

• Pulsing red rapidly

– Thermal protection (this also automatically reduces output volume)

– In this case, turn down the volume control on the source/preamp or, even better, turn off the product (disconnect from the mains), until it has cooled off

Sources

• This is examples of sources we have tested internally – all with great success- Please share your experiences with us so that we can add them to the list

• Digital output (recommended for the most accurate playback)
• Wiim Pro Plus
• Lyngdorf TDAI 3400 (only pre-amp section)
• Lumin T3
• HiFi Rose RS 150 / 250
• Analogue output
• Moon 791 (Used for demo at High End Munich 2024)
• Auralic Altair 1
• Other – For a system integrator, a Dante adapter (e.g. Audinate Dante AVIO 2ch AES3 I/O Adapter) will allow connection to a control system (with Dante) and send signals from all sources in the system to Confidence 20A

Confidence 20A: $24,000/pr (USD)

Product Description

The A25-M is a large stand-mount monitor, 23” tall, 12 1/2” wide and 15” deep. Like most studio monitors, this is an active speaker, with dedicated amplifiers on board for woofer, midrange and tweeter. The amps are rated at 95 watts, 30 watts, and 12 watts continuous and 330, 130, and 55 watts peak output. Class G and H amplifiers are used, which simply means a normal class A/B design but with power supply voltages that vary with the signal to increase efficiency and headroom. Continuous max SPL is 111 db at 1 meter. Price in the red finish I received is $13,798 per pair. Black and white finishes are also available for a small upcharge. There is, by the way, a residentially-oriented version of the A25, called the Heritage3, which uses the same drivers but in a veneered floor-standing design at a significantly higher price. I used the A25 on SolidSteel SS-5 stands which placed the tweeter at ear level and provided robust support for each 60 lb A25.

Active speakers are troubling for many audiophiles, largely I think because tweaking sound quality with amp selection is off the table. That’s your call, but listeners not committed to tweaking should consider some of the advantages of the active approach. Active speakers use electronic crossovers, and these can more easily (which lowers costs) and efficiently create adjustments to compensate for some driver and cabinet behavior than the typical passive crossovers used in most non-active speakers (which means a nominal 137 watts per channel may be more like 250 or 500 watts with a passive speaker). Sometimes designers can do things with electronics that are almost impossible with passive components. In addition to tailoring the crossover slopes, the A25 has circuits that PSI calls Compensated Phase Response and Adaptive Output Impedance. Certainly, the phase response measurements that PSI supplies are impressive. All of this electronic processing is done in the analog domain.

Speaking of impressive, PSI supplies a measured frequency response for each speaker. You can see one of these here. Note that the massive deviations from flat that are assumed by some to be part of the weird culture of studios seem entirely absent. This is an anechoic response at 1 meter, so we would encourage filing this in the ‘interesting factoid’ department because you don’t listen in an anechoic chamber, you don’t listen at 1 meter, your ear/brain is not a microphone etc. (see our Methodology FAQ in the Audiopedia section of the TAS website for more about this). That said, linear response suggests a potentially well-behaved system, and PSI supplies other information about directivity that supports this. Or not, depending on which of the 30 or more measurable parameters of speakers you like to count as favorites.

We say, however, that I can’t reason well, and most of you can’t reason well, from measurements to sound quality. So, we listen.

Sound Quality

Those of you who have watched some of my other reviews will know that I like to think about the user and the context of preferences for each product we review. My experience is that most listeners hear the same things, but they don’t care about them equally. We call these differences preferences, though I am afraid that word makes individual reactions seem more arbitrary than they in fact are. If your tastes and another listener’s tastes simply have nothing to do with the sound of real instruments or the space in which performers are reproduced, or the artist’s idea of what made the music emotionally powerful, well, I can’t say anything of use to you. However, talking to hundreds of audiophiles a year, I observe that our views are more similar than such a theory of the arbitrariness of music and sound would lead you to believe. There is a baseline reality we are trying to approximate with a believable rendition of music. The choice from among the inevitable errors with respect to believability is the focus of our different preferences.

So, I offer the following simplification of reality to, I hope, aid viewers in understanding where the PSI A25 fits for them. From discussions with consumers, I am finding that we can roughly divide listeners into two camps:

• those who prize vividness and engagement very highly
• those who prize tonal beauty to a great degree

Remember, it isn’t that ‘tonal beauty’ listeners don’t hear or value ‘vividness’. But they are at least willing to accept less of it and there may be a level of vividness that is ‘too much’ in that it acts as a distraction. Similarly, it isn’t that ‘vivid engagement’ listeners don’t hear or value ‘tonal beauty’. But they are willing to accept tonal errors, to a degree, but are less tolerant of the loss of transparency and dynamics in reproduced music.

As with all segmentation schemes, this one does some damage to reality in the interests of simplicity. My motivation is that a quick survey of reviewers suggests that a majority are ‘vivid engagement’ listeners. That leads them, with no malice aforethought, to describe ‘vivid enagement’ qualities as getting closer to the absolute sound, which indeed is the case. But, it may also cause them to under-emphasize ‘tonal beauty’ in their analysis. So, forthwith and forsooth, I will endeavor to attend to both these groups of preferences in as balanced a fashion as I can muster. You can then decide if any given product’s balance seems right for you.

The PSI A25 is a suitable subject for launching this approach. I found the A25 deeply disturbing because it does tonal beauty relatively well, if that’s what you want, and yet engagement isn’t tossed aside as an irrelevance. In fact, anything but.

The A25 works well on both hi-res classical recordings and on older recordings that were, perhaps, not ideally recorded. Remember, we use classical recordings as test signals not because we think that’s what you prefer, but because we have an ‘absolute sound’ reference for evaluating what certain gear does. As an example of how the A25 performs, I used the Messiaen Turangalila Symphony with Nelsons and the BSO. This recording can induce ‘high-frequency zing fatigue’, but the A25 nicely controls the zing. The big thing, perhaps, is that the A25 retains a superb sense of instrumental separation, so that you can follow the various lines of the work easily. This is in contrast to some speakers that seem aimed at tonal beauty but bring a bit of a pillowed sound along for the ride and end up muffling the fun. As another example, on Elgar’s ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the A25 presents so much of the work as you can imagine hearing it from about Row J that I was deeply impressed. The violin tone is clear but not etched and the singers come through with effortlessness as output rises and the various choirs are delivered without the all-too-common muddled delivery.

However, I think some ‘tonal beauty’ listeners want to avoid harshness and distortions above all else, and I think the A25 will not go far enough for such listeners. The A25 takes a balanced approach, and this balance of softening some of the hash while revealing the instrumental lines is the speaker’s strength or weakness, depending on your point of view. If you want violins to sound like violas, you have to go farther than the A25 does. If you want a Strat through a Marshall overdriven to sound like a Les Paul through a Twin Reverb, nope. And the A25 won’t correct DAC distortions because those aren’t in the frequency domain.

I also think it is possible that some ‘tonal beauty’ listeners find, in some music, that the large array of musical lines and the dynamics of different instruments or musical parts to be almost overwhelming. I relate this to an experience at CEDIA last year, where demo after demo of high-end home theater felt pretty much frightening or terrorizing. It was an unpleasant feeling, and I wanted to leave each demo as soon as possible. At the time I said “for me, when a volcano is erupting on screen and dinosaurs are marching out of the forest toward the audience (and our hero), I’m already agitated and fearful. I don’t really need to have four 15” subs blasting dinosaur footfalls at 100 db to be afraid. Scared is appropriate, terrorized is bad. IMHO. Maybe a lot of musical detail, even if accurate to the real sound of the instruments, is simply too much for some listeners? I don’t think the A25 goes far enough in the tonal beauty direction to address this overload, if it is an issue for you, because it actually delivers a lot of detail and instrumental color and dynamic punch.

Now in the world of listeners who want some ‘vivid engagement’, this dynamic quality with reduced harshness might be ideal. I noticed time after time with rock and jazz recordings that difficult transients like rim shots had excellent snap. This includes good rise time, but also the sense of fast settling time too. And, I reiterate that the delineating of musical lines is very good.

Voicing

The bass of the A25 is nicely judged. This is of course room dependent, and PSI provides a low frequency contour control for mounting near a wall or in a corner. I used the speakers out in the room, in the calculated smoothest positions in my room, so I left the control set to flat. Low bass is solid into at least the low 30s (I measured a 26 Hz low frequency -3 db point in room). Even more important for many is that mid-bass from 40 Hz to 80 Hz is perhaps very slightly elevated, yet quite detailed. This seems in line with the -1 db tilt per octave that seems desirable. The A25 is a ported design, and I would say it has a little port blur, but not much. Frankly the bass has plenty of detail and sounds quite realistic, it just isn’t as dry as some studio performances can be. I think for a lot of people this will be a plus.

Upper bass to lower midrange is nearly flat, but I sense that the 200 – 400 hz range might be a touch diminished. This happens with many speakers and I suspect floor bounce interference is a factor, so it may seem normal or even right to you.

Midrange really shines with the A25, but in a specific way. Voices are very slightly set back in the mix, which many listeners find more believable; however, you should be the judge. But voices are clear and show good octave-to-octave balance.

I was worried that the treble would be too strong (that urban myth thing), but the treble is balanced and smooth. Upper midrange dynamics are simply superb in that the transient life is preserved, but an over etched attack isn’t what is happening. I did think you could criticize the A25 for being more dynamic as the frequency rises above the bass, but you really have to be finicky to notice this and many speakers will then be open to this critique. A more salient critique for the tonal beauty people might be that all this treble dynamism is distracting because it is so well done.

Imaging

The imaging of the A25 is quite good. Like many of the speakers I’ve been reviewing recently, we have to unpack what is happening. The A25 does two very useful things in my listening. The first, already alluded to, is that central images are well-delivered and are set back in various planes of depth, as called for by the recording. I would say that in general, images start at the rear plane of the speakers and extend 6-8 feet deeper, depending. The other imaging feature of the A25 that I thought was well done is the lack of pinpoint imaging. That might sound odd, but if you listen to live music you will rarely hear a performer positioned plus or minus 1 foot on stage. The A25 positions performers as small “clouds” of sound, placed across the stage as appropriate. If there is a weakness here, it is that performers placed hard left or hard right seem to come from the speakers, and since they are in a plane in front of the central images, the stage is more U-shaped than is believable. To be fair, I’ve noticed a version of this on many speakers and some of those don’t have the other imaging benefits of the A25. The A25 also seems to slightly restrict height presentation.

Value

Of course, I can’t know your budget, so value, in the sense of affordability, is really an untouchable topic. But value defined as quality compared to comparably priced and lower-price products can be discussed.

I do think we have to first point out the obvious fact that the A25s include amplifiers. If you would spend $2k-$4k on a power amp, then the A25s are $11k speakers, roughly. Other speakers I’ve reviewed that seem philosophically aligned with the A25 include the MoFi Sourcepoint 888 and the Sonus Faber Sonetto V G2. I think the A25 is at least as good as those speakers in offering a dose of soft tonal beauty while delivering more vividness and just plain lower distortion than they do. Of course, you pay a price for these gains, if they are gains for you. You might also find that one of those other speakers simply fits your room acoustics better (the bigger bass of the 888s for example). The excellent Acoustic Energy Corinium takes transparency up a notch from these lower cost speakers, though it doesn’t have quite the transient shaping as the A25 or its bass definition. The Corinium is, however, less expensive.

Summary

Thanks for hanging in there on this somewhat lengthy discussion of a sonically interesting speaker. For a listener who wants a wide variety of recordings to sound at least good and who also prizes a sense of transparency to the original performance, the PSI Audio A25-M is a very special speaker. It balances these goals brilliantly while costing only somewhat more than some of our favorite under $10k speakers. Well done, and not at all the sonic signature we expected.